While I have not read all of RFK’s statements closely, my general impression is that he focuses on topics that are potentially important/relevant, and then unfortunately often exaggerates or distorts the facts.
In a previous article titled If You Sanewashed RFK Jr., Or If You Sanewashed Doctors Who Did, You Own the Next 4 Years, I discussed doctors who had either written pro-RFK Jr. propaganda articles or profited from Substacks that did. Examples include:
That last article, by Dr. Schaltz-Buchholzer from the monetized misinformation Substack Sensible Medicine, said:
While I have not read all of RFK’s statements closely, my general impression is that he focuses on topics that are potentially important/relevant, and then unfortunately often exaggerates or distorts the facts.
That’s a profoundly embarrassing thing to have written. Saying that RFK Jr. “exaggerates or distorts the facts” is like saying the Titanic was an unpleasant boat ride. As people who actually bothered to read RFK Jr.’s statements closely know, he is a paranoid, angry crank, utterly disconnected from reality, who wants to take a wrecking ball to everything.
RFK Jr. says measles vaccine routinely causes deaths. That’s not true
It’s no coincidence that the same doctors who spread absurdities about COVID- just watch their old videos– also claimed that the man behind Vaxxed 3: Authorized to Kill was the perfect guy to save vaccines and science in general. The same patterns are repeating.
Although RFK Jr. has been in office for under two months, we can begin to take stock of what these doctors, some who are now part of this administration, now own.
- US Measles Cases Jump 35% In a Week: Now Found In 12 States
- A Texas child who was not vaccinated has died of measles, a first for the US in a decade
- Remedy Supported by Kennedy Leaves Some Measles Patients More Ill
- RFK Jr.: It Would Be Better If ‘Everybody Got Measles
- RFK Jr. says measles vaccine routinely causes deaths. That’s not true
- Measles is back — and RFK Jr. isn’t taking it seriously
- Keeping With Kennedy’s Advice, Measles Patients Turn to Unproven Treatments In West Texas
- RFK Jr. Says Federal Vaccine Advisers Are Beholden To Industry. The Evidence Does Not Support Him
- FDA lays off bird flu leadership, among steep cuts to senior veterinarians
- FDA tobacco official is removed from post in latest blow to health agency’s leadership
- NIH To Terminate Or Limit Grants Related To Vaccine Hesitancy And Uptake
- FDA Annual Flu Vaccine Meeting and CDC’s ‘Wild to Mild’ Campaign Canceled
- RFK Jr. Pauses Peninsula Company’s Oral Covid Vaccine Clinical Trial
- CDC Will Research Widely Debunked Link Between Vaccines And Autism
- Scientists Say NIH Officials Told Them To Scrub mRNA References on Grants
- RFK Jr.’s Prescription for Bird Flu on Farms: Let It Spread
- NIH to ax grants on vaccine hesitancy, mRNA vaccines
- Measles Cases in Texas Rise to 400 as U.S. Total Reaches Nearly 500 amid Worsening Outbreak, Officials Say
- The Expert Who Kept Eye Drops From Blinding You Was Fired Yesterday
- Trump Administration Shuttering Long Covid Office
- HHS taps anti-vaccine activist to look at debunked links between autism and vaccines, sources say
- Saying ‘pandemic is over,’ NIH starts cutting COVID-19 research
- Vaxart lays off 10% of staff after HHS unexpectedly demands halt to COVID vaccine trial
- CDC is pulling back $11B in Covid funding sent to health departments across the U.S.
- Trump cuts damage global efforts to track diseases, prevent outbreaks
- U.S. to End Vaccine Funds for Poor Countries
- DOGE moves to gut CDC work on gun injuries, sexual assault, opioid overdose data, and more
- CDC layoffs strike deeply at its ability to respond to the current flu, norovirus and measles outbreaks and other public health emergencies
- NIH sued over ‘ideological purge’ of DEI, Covid and vaccine research
- Trump administration says it will pull back billions in COVID funding from local health departments
- As Measles Continues to Rise, CDC Muffles Vaccine Messaging
- FDA Commissioner Marty Makary gets off to a bruising start as agency is wracked by layoffs
- US FDA Commissioner Makary Was Sworn In, Knew Of Plan to Push Out Marks, Sources Say
- ‘Bloodbath’ at NIH and Elsewhere at HHS Begins
- NIH Director Removes Four Main Scientists amid Massive Staff Purge
- Doctor Behind Award-Winning Parkinson’s Research Among Scientists Purged From NIH
- Trump admin cancels NIH scientific integrity policy
- Trump administration cuts FDA staff handling bird flu outbreaks
- FDA layoffs described as “devastating” as mass cuts ensue across government agencies
- ‘One of the darkest days’: NIH purges agency leadership amid mass layoffs
- Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has its billion dollar grant cut by Trump administration
- H.H.S. Scraps Studies of Vaccines and Treatments for Future Pandemics
- Vaccine critic’s apparent selection to head HHS autism study shocks experts
- Trump administration at ‘war’ with mRNA technology: scientists alarmed vaccine skeptics could kill research
- Texas children poisoned after RFK Jr touts vitamin A as measles treatment
- Trump’s War Against HIV Research and Care
- F.D.A. Layoffs Could Raise Drug Costs and Erode Food Safety
- How Kennedy is already weakening America’s childhood vaccine system
- Big cuts to US AIDS prevention feared as NIH axes HIV research grants
- Washington state vaccination clinic canceled after CDC funding cuts
- “The country is less safe”: CDC disease detective program gutted
- The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations
- FDA’s top vaccine scientist is out, citing Kennedy’s ‘misinformation and lies’
- Doctors Blast RFK Jr After Vaccine Chief Forced Out: ‘Gutting of Expertise’
- Staff At CDC And NIH Are Reeling As Trump Administration Cuts Workforce
- RFK Jr. says he’ll cut 20,000 positions from Health and Human Services workforce
- Chaos and Confusion’ at the Crown Jewel of American Science
- ‘Taking away years of experience’: NIH probationary employees fired Friday
- HHS starts layoffs of thousands of workers across its agencies
- Experts Concerned as NIH Axes Critical Vaccine Study Funds
- Trump Cuts Target Next Generation of Scientists and Public Health Leaders
- Trump officials will screen NIH funding opportunities.
- FDA staff left ‘scrambling’ to complete product reviews after DOGE layoffs
- More NIH job cuts coming? Agency’s scientists already reeling after week of firings
- 5 High-Level CDC Officials Are Leaving in the Latest Turmoil for the Agency
- Here Are The Words Putting Science In The Crosshairs Of Trump’s Orders
- The CDC Has Been Gutted
- Dozens of free measles vaccine clinics close in Texas as federal funding is cut
- After RFK Jr.’s ‘radical transparency’ pledge, HHS shutters much of its communications, FOIA operations
- Inside yesterday’s anxiety-inducing, ‘crude and callous’ HHS cuts
- Fauci allies, Covid vaccine officials get ax at NIH
- Top Trump FDA official Brenner hits pause on Novavax Covid-19 vaccine decision
- RFK Jr. cuts 4,700 FDA and NIH jobs as HHS eliminates ‘an entire alphabet soup of departments’
- Research in Ruin: Slashing the NIH Will Stifle Development of Lifesaving Medical Treatments and Harm the Economy
- RFK Jr. lays off staffers who run FDA’s vaccine expert panel
- Widespread firings start at federal health agencies including many in leadership
- Johns Hopkins University To Slash 2,000 Jobs After $800M In Federal Cuts
- Stanford To Lose $160 Million In NIH Funding Change
- UCSF ‘Borders on Panic’ Facing Potential Trump Funding Slash
- Massive layoffs, purge of leadership underway at U.S. health agencies
- Layoffs begin at HHS agencies responsible for research, tracking disease and regulating food
- Trump Administration Has Begun a War on Science, Researchers Say
- ‘It’s a bloodbath’: Massive wave of job cuts began at US health agencies
- 75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving
- FDA Is ‘Finished’ Amid HHS Firings. Drug Stocks are Dropping
- Trump administration orders NIH to eliminate $2.6 billion in federal contracts
- FDA planning for fewer food and drug inspections due to layoffs, officials say
- RFK Jr. purges CDC and FDA’s public records teams, despite “transparency” promises
- Young scientists see career pathways vanish as schools adapt to federal funding cuts
- NIH Cuts Will Devastate Disease Research, Say Senators and Scientists
- NIH removing outside scientific advisers who evaluate research
- NIH Director Removes Four Main Scientists amid Massive Staff Purge
- At NIH, ‘everyone is on edge’ as they brace for deep cuts and more centralized control
- All this is in crisis’: US universities curtail staff, spending as Trump cuts take hold
Any one of those articles is basically enough to disqualify RFK Jr. as a leader of the HHS. As Dr. David Gorksi wrote here on Monday, “Make America Healthy Again”: The New Lysenkoism.
Falling vaccine coverage over the years is a problem that likely increased due to the failed COVID-19 policies you championed.
Despite all this, none of the doctors who authored pro-RFK Jr. propaganda pieces have cared enough to look back. As with their false declarations of herd immunity 4-years-ago, reality does not impede them a bit. Doctors who promised that RFK Jr. would restore confidence in vaccines haven’t reflected on whether or not that turned out to be the case. The author of Why Doctors Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love MAHA hasn’t explained to me why I should “love” everything that’s happening now.
In fact several of these doctors are responsible for recent headlines of mass purges and censorship. Their agencies are in complete disarray and their boss is an anti-vaccine crank. This is what they signed up for. These doctors have continued to lavish praise on their new boss. Dr. Bhattacharya recently said he “admires” RFK Jr. and that:
He wakes up in the morning asking, “How can I make the lives of children better? How can we address the chronic health needs of the American people?” He has ideas about what causes autism. But from a scientific point of view, there’s been a tremendous increase in autism diagnoses… And we don’t know why. The answer in that situation is to do excellent science so that we can find out what causes it—and then we can address it in an informed way.
That’s going to age as well as Dr. Bhattacharya’s prediction that COVID would kill 20,000-40,000 Americans.
Other pro-RFK Jr. doctors now claim that RFK Jr. is not responsible for the actions of RFK Jr. In their telling, his 20-year history of anti-vaccine disinformation was magically erased the moment he was sworn into office, and the anti-vaccine disinformation he’s spread since then is also of no consequence. Desperate to absolve themselves of any responsibility for elevating RFK Jr., they have displaced his assault on science onto those of us who warned about it. Like blaming meteorologists for hurricanes, they absurdly claim that myself and those who warned of disinformation, are the reason parents in Texas are refusing the MMR and poisoning their children with vitamin A. It’s all my fault. If only I’d gotten behind the plan to mass infect unvaccinated people under age 70 to reach herd immunity in 3-6 months, none of this would be happening now.
RFK Jr. is blameless. It’s my fault that vaccine clinics are closing in Texas as federal funding is cut.
Just where is that extensive 5000 word longform apology from Adam Cifu over at Sensible Medicine, begging forgiveness for legitimizing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr?
These pathetic attempts to blame me and the always unnamed “failed COVID-19 policies” I supposedly championed aren’t going to work. My articles explaining why death is worse than vaccine side-effects aren’t the reason kids are being hospitalized with measles. In reality, doctors who fluffed RFK Jr. own RFK Jr. As Pandemic Accountability Index (PAI) wrote in their harsh but fair article RFK Jr. Fanboys Owe You An Apology:
I am writing to RFK Jr.’s fan club directly now. You now own this moment.
You can toss out the Substack draft, shut down the podcast recording equipment, and drop the tweeting device of your choice. Sure, you can say whatever you want going forward – but it will be forever tainted by the stain that you got your way, your boy wound up in charge – and faced with the basic responsibilities of the role you said he would excel at? RFK Jr. immediately failed. Now a child is dead as a result. There is absolutely zero pieces of media you can publish which could change this fact. You will never wipe away this stain for the rest of your pathetic lives.
The general public should hound you at every attempt of a public appearance you make in the future and remind you of what you championed. Your colleagues should look upon you with scorn and embarrassment, that they’re forced to share a workplace with such a useless, incompetent piece of trash. Professional obligations with your name attached should be canceled with explicit condemnations. You all owe the critics of RFK Jr. that you insulted as “covidians” and other childish smears a massive, extensive apology. There is no “debate,” you are just wrong.
You got your way with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and he rushed to start treating infectious disease outbreaks with fish oil supplements. With an innocent child paying the ultimate price to entertain your perverted ideals of how science and medicine should function. Just how do you plan to hold The Medical Establishment, which RFK Jr. is now a part of, accountable? Your ideals won out – and now a child is dead of measles because you wanted “revenge” on anyone who struggled to prevent pediatric COVID-19 deaths. RFK Jr’s critics were immediately validated, and you have absolutely nothing to show for it in response.
PAI also asked:
Just where is that extensive 5000 word longform apology from Adam Cifu over at Sensible Medicine, begging forgiveness for legitimizing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr? Do we have a clip from Real Time With Bill Maher featuring Bari Weiss from The Free Press condemning contributor Vinay Prasad from UCSF for misleading her audience about RFK Jr’s merits?…
Those of us who possess at least an incredibly basic understanding of medicine, science, and public health told you precisely how Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services was going to play out. We were immediately proven correct. Don’t seem to see many apologies on social media, however – isn’t that strange?
Those are fair and important questions, but those apologies won’t be coming. No matter how widely measles spreads, Dr. Vinay Prasad won’t apologize for his pro-RFK Jr propaganda, and his business partners, Drs. John Mandrola and Adam Cifu, won’t apologize for profiting from it. If a miracle occurs and we are healthier in 4 years, I will admit I was wrong about RFK Jr. However, as with COVID, none of the doctors who celebrated RFK Jr. will ever take responsibility for their words. They used the pandemic to build their brand and achieve political power. When RFK Jr. and his ilk threatened the foundations of American science and medicine, they again prioritized their paid subscribers and need to feel “heterodox”. Other people will suffer due to their actions, and it’s our job to constantly remind these doctors of what they enabled, no matter how much they protest that the truth hurts their feelings. We are just getting started, the repercussions will last for many decades, and many people will get hurt along with way.
They told us to love it, and so they own it all.
